


Letting Go

by PhantomEngineer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alzheimer's Disease, Angst, Dementia, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 16:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16559576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomEngineer/pseuds/PhantomEngineer
Summary: It started as slowly as their relationship. Subtle and smooth, moments of forgetfulness to be dismissed until they could no longer be ignored.





	Letting Go

It started as subtly as their relationship had started. That had been so gradual, so painstakingly slow and yet so natural that it hadn’t even had a beginning. It had been as if there was simply a progression, from the moment when Harry had first met Severus’s eyes across the Great Hall, an initial spark of mistrust that had deepened, hardened to hatred, which had been cauterised by the heat of the war, revelations leaving Harry unable to hate freely and Severus without the misty haze of his dubious loyalties to divert attention from his true self. From there, it had been a slippery slope of getting to know each other, despite having known each other for years, having believed they knew everything about the other. Slowly collapsing downwards, spiralling closer and closer like a star sucked into oblivion by an inescapable black hole, until there was nothing except the reality of the two of them living together, loving each other, eternally intwined. 

Those first few years, fraught with danger and anger, were as brief as the blink of an eye in comparison to all the years that followed, a steady routine of growing older together, growing even further together than they already were. A comfortable balance, where moments of forgetfulness meant nothing, until they meant everything and it was too late.

“He called me Potter,” Harry sobbed, unable to do much else, having spent too much energy on being strong to continue the facade with Hermione or Ron.

Hermione patted his shoulder, hopeless and helpless, a feeble gesture that conveyed all her desire to do more. Ron was silent, staring off into space in deep contemplation, as incapable of doing more than providing fleeting brushes of comfort as Hermione and like her also wishing there was something he could do.

“I think that’s just the way it is…” Hermione said, unable to do more than keep her head above the turbulent waters drowning Harry, unable to pull him ashore, unable to even locate a shore to head for.

“No,” Harry said through his tears, wiping at his eyes furiously, “Not Potter, like when we were at school. Potter, like my father.”

Ron pulled him into a hug, and for a while there was nothing but Harry crying, expelling impotent grief as Ron stroked circles on his back as he and Hermione looked at each other, their own sadness of a lesser importance.

“There’s a difference, you see,” Harry said, after the sobs had subsided enough that he could speak, his voice muffled against Ron’s chest that was no longer as lithe or as young as it once had been, age having wrapped them all in its soft embrace rather than being drawn away by death before it could claim it’s hold on them, “It’s not nice when he calls me Potter, when he sees me as his student. But still that’s better than him calling me Potter, and not even seeing me but seeing my father.”

There was nothing either of them could say, except the quiet comfort of being there. Hearing the words he had to say, no matter how choked and incoherent they might be, caring enough to listen.

“I love him so much,” Harry said, a phrase repeated so often he knew he sounded like a broken record, “But Severus barely remembers me. He barely remembers loving me. I don’t know, is it better or worse than looking at me and only seeing a stranger, that he sees his childhood bully?”

“There’s nothing more the potions can do?” Ron asked, even though he already knew the answer even without Harry shaking his head.

“There’s still moments,” he said, sniffing, “When he does remember, mostly. But they’re rarer and shorter with every day. I think, if it was me, he would be able to do something, you know? Invent a potion. But it’s him, and there’s nothing I can do except watch him forget me bit by bit until there’s nothing left inside.”


End file.
